Recent Articles

Online vandals protesting the recent shutdown of cellphone service at San Francisco subway stations posted a nude photo of the transit agency spokesman who took responsibility for the highly controversial move.

The image of Linton Johnson, chief spokesman for Bay Area Rapid Transit, was posted Wednesday afternoon to a page on Weebly, a site that makes it easy for people to publish their own web content. It shows Johnson pulling down a pair of red Adidas gym shorts to partially reveal his penis. His tee shirt is emblazoned with the word "stiff."

The page included five other pictures in which Johnson is wearing pants. His cellphone number, personal email address and website are also included.

The page read: “LINTON JOHNSON - 'The Face Of BART' If you are going to be a dick to the public, then Im sure you dont mind showing your dick to the public....”

The post is the latest act to protest BART's move two weeks ago to temporarily disable mobile service in four stations ahead of planned demonstrations denouncing a fatal police shooting in July. On a conference call with reporters last week, Johnson said the suspension of service was his idea and was necessary to prevent overcrowding and other unsafe conditions in underground stations. Service was restored a few hours later, and signals outside BART stations weren't affected.

Since that time, people flying the flag of the Anonymous hacking collective have posted personal information belonging to BART passengers and officers of BART's police force to protest the suspension of service. They have also staged two protests that prompted police to briefly close some stations, but allow cellular service to remain uninterrupted.

It's unclear where the racy picture of Johnson originated. In a Tweet from Tuesday, a user named dettman claimed to “have 14 embarrassing photos” of Johnson and gave the spokesman 24 hours to resign.

Johnson wasn't available for comment, and BART representatives said they had no plans to comment on the photo. ®